The Coffee Trader

Description

Amsterdam in the 1690s - a boom town with Europe's biggest stock exchange and traders who will stop at nothing to get even richer. Lienzo, a Portugese Jew, stumbles across a new commodity - coffee - which, if he plays his cards right, will make him the richest man in Holland. But others stand in his way - rival traders who do all in their power to confuse the exchange and scupper his plans, his brother who is jealous of his financial wizardry and even his brother's beautiful wife who both tempts and spurns him in equal measure.

Author of the Edgar-Award-winning A CONSPIRACY OF PAPER (Best first crime novel in the USA).

It's Liss' view that the roots of modern business can be traced to 17th century Amsterdam, although rather than enforce this opinion with a dry treatise he shows us why through a well-researched financial thriller. Lienzo, a down-on-his-luck Portuguese Jewish financier, is tempted into dealing in the emerging coffee trade by a flamboyant and independently successful Dutch woman. Their business partnership could rescue Lienzo from financial ruin but many things stand in his way, including his callous brother, a respected and feared member of Amsterdam's Jewish community, and the deceptions of his fellow manipulators of the money markets. Behind this yarn lies the buzz of a vibrant trading city, the bustle of the early capitalists and the aroma of this new peculiar substance, 'the drink of commerce'.